One Young Fool in Dorset (12 page)

“Nelson’s Eye! Nelson’s Eye!” chanted the older
girls as they blindfolded us with woollen TH scarves wound around
our heads.

I lost track of where Snort was when my shoulders
were held, and I was spun round and round. Then I was half-pushed,
half-led, deeper into the woods. I deduced that from the fact that
the leaf litter seemed thicker underfoot, and low branches scraped
me.

“Where are you taking us?” I asked, stumbling.

“Silence! You are not allowed to talk during
Nelson’s Eye!”

From the whispers, I guessed there were about three
girls steering me. It seemed like a long walk. The woods were not
flat; there were huge dips and sudden drops, like Pug’s Hole, a
favourite place for us girls to play. Underground air-raid shelters
had been built during World War II but these were now overgrown,
leaving humps in the ground that we either climbed over or
navigated round. The journey seemed to take forever. Twigs snapped
underfoot and startled birds squawked and flapped away. Brambles
scratched my bare legs. At last we stopped and I wondered whether
Snort was nearby.

“Who are you?” shouted a girl.

I stood still. Was she talking to me?

“Who are you?” shouted the girl again. “Answer
me!”

“Answer her!” somebody hissed in my ear.

“I’m Dusty, well, my real name’s Vic…” I started,
but was cut short.

“No, you’re not! You are the lowest cabin girl on
the ship! You are lower than the ship’s cat! Even lower than a rat!
Until you pass the initiation ceremony, you will have no name!”

I stood still, listening.

“Are you ready, Nameless?”

“Er, yes.”

“Do you agree to take the test, Nameless?”

“Yes.”
What choice did I have?

“Do you promise never to talk of the ceremony of
Nelson’s Eye to anyone, ever?”

“I promise.”

“If you do, you will be cursed, and the ghost of
Emily the scullery maid will haunt you until the day you leave the
school. Say you promise.”

“I promise.”

“And who are you?” shouted the girl in another
direction.

“I’m nameless too,” said Snort’s voice from some
distance away.

She had clearly heard my interchange, and she was a
quick learner.

“Correct! You are nameless and you are the lowest
cabin girl on the ship! You are lower than the ship’s cat! Even
lower than a rat! Do you promise
never
to speak of Nelson’s
Eye to anyone, ever? And do you understand that if you do, you will
be cursed, and the ghost of Emily the scullery maid will haunt you
until the day you leave TH?”

I held my breath. Snort was not one to be bossed
around, and I knew she didn’t believe in the ghost of Emily the
scullery maid. A slight pause.

“Yes. I promise.”

Whew! Well done, Snort. Best to play along.

“Then let the ceremony commence!”

“Nelson’s Eye! Nelson’s Eye! Nelson’s Eye! Nelson’s
Eye!”

From all around me, I could hear the chanting, so I
guessed we were in a clearing filled with older girls.

“Shake hands with the skeleton of Nelson!”

I stood still, not understanding.

“Go on then, shake hands!” someone urged.

I stuck my right hand out, grasped the skeletal
hand, and shook it. It was so obviously a tree branch I almost
laughed. I hoped Snort would behave.

“Now shake the hand of a corpse that has been
floating in the ocean.”

Obediently, I shook hands with what felt like a
rubber glove filled with water. Easy.

“These are Nelson’s kidneys, squeeze them in your
hands.”

Bleugh! Now that didn’t sound very nice.

Gingerly, I held out my hands, palms up. Two peeled
boiled eggs were plopped into them. I knew exactly what they were
as soon as I felt them and squeezed them with no trouble at
all.

“Now it’s time to walk the plank! When you get to
the end, you must jump. Be careful, it’s a long way down.”

Now I really
was
scared. Where were we? Were
we near Pug’s Hole? If so, that was a really steep drop in the
woods. I knew there was no water as I didn’t think we were anywhere
near the Bug Pond, but how far would I have to jump?

“Walk, Nameless!”

What if I broke a leg and had to stay in the
Sanatorium, like Broomhead in Upper Four, who broke her leg in gym
and couldn’t climb the stairs to her dorm?

“Walk-the-plank, walk-the-plank, walk-the-plank,”
chanted the spectators.

I felt for the beginning of the plank with the toe
of my sandal. Thankfully, the plank was wide. I shuffled slowly
along it, arms outstretched to keep balance, desperately wishing I
could rip the blindfold away from my eyes and see where I was
going.

“Walk! Walk! Walk!” chanted the spectators, more
excited now.

I shuffled further.

“You are at the end now, stop!”

I stopped.

“Now jump!”

I knew I had to, but I really didn’t want to jump.
My legs were trembling.

“Jump! Jump! Jump!” shouted the spectators.

I took a deep breath, bent my knees and sprang high
into the air off the end of the board.

There was no drop at all. The plank was flat on the
ground, not suspended above any drop. Apart from the shock, and
stumbling a little as I landed, I was totally unhurt and would not
need carting off to the Sanatorium. The relief was
immeasurable.

I must have looked very silly, and I could hear
laughter, quickly muffled because they were about to play the same
trick on Snort.

“And finally, you must plunge your finger into
Nelson’s eye!”

After walking the plank, this shouldn’t be a
problem. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy.

My hand was grasped, and my extended forefinger was
pushed into something wet and squelchy. It was extremely
unpleasant, but not painful.

Then the scarf over my eyes was pulled off. It was
over!

As I blinked in the sudden light, I discovered what
I had pushed my finger into: a mouldy orange. I wiped off the mess
on my finger on the back of my shorts. There were plenty of girls
in the clearing, including some girls from my dorm. I opened my
mouth to speak, but they all put their fingers to their lips, and
pointed. It was Snort’s turn to walk the plank.

Poor Snort. I knew how she was feeling, but she was
braver than me and didn’t hesitate. She jumped off the end of the
plank as soon as she was told and was just as surprised as me to
discover that the ground was level. Nelson’s mouldy eye gave her no
trouble either.

“You have both passed the ceremony,” said the girl
whose voice was by now familiar to us. “I hereby name you Dusty and
Snort!”

The spectators applauded. The relief was enormous.
Nelson’s Eye was no longer a black cloud that hung over us. We had
done it, passed it, and survived.

“I’m so glad that’s over,” I said to Snort when we
were alone again.

“Me too! Most of it was just silly, but I hated
walking the plank.”

I nodded, recalling my fear.

I suppose we were lucky really. Initiation
ceremonies are common in English public schools, particularly boys’
schools, and Nelson’s Eye was very mild compared with some.

My brother told me that every new boy in some
schools had to crawl under all the beds in the dorm, getting
thwacked with slippers as they emerged from under each bed. Some
schools pushed new boys in laundry baskets down flights of steps.
Ritual cold baths were administered at others, or ‘crucifixions’
where a broom pole was pushed through the sleeves of a blazer like
a scarecrow, while the unlucky new boy was wearing it.

“I thought we might end up in the San with broken
legs,” I said.

The Sanatorium (or San) was housed in a separate
building and was Sister MacDonald’s empire. It looked rather like a
dorm, except it was sterile and devoid of any personality, much
like any hospital ward.

Sister MacDonald was a large, fierce lady who
rustled as she moved. Her white uniform was starched so stiffly
that it surprised me that it allowed her to walk at all, and I was
sure she couldn’t sit down.

Sister MacDonald’s main purpose in life seemed to be
to track down malingerers and send them back to school immediately.
Unless a girl had a broken limb, or a ridiculously high
temperature, or was covered in spots that the doctor pronounced
contagious, she was perfectly fit to go back to school, in Sister
MacDonald’s opinion.

Sister MacDonald had a fool-proof test she would
apply to all suspected malingerers. It went like this:

Sister MacDonald:
Would you like a nice bowl
of ice cream?

Patient:
No, thank you.

Sister MacDonald:
Poor dear, lie down and get
some rest.

or

Sister MacDonald:
Would you like a nice bowl
of ice cream?

Patient:
Yes, please!

Sister MacDonald:
Right, up you get and get
dressed. I’m discharging you now. If you hurry, you’ll catch
afternoon lessons.

* * *

School Report

English:
Victoria is keen
but her work is spoilt by carelessness.

Mathematics:
If Victoria
made more effort to concentrate instead of staring out of the
window, we would all see better results.

Victoria has made a disappointing start. She
must learn to set a good example, always behave in public and not
be a leader in rule breaking. Her untidiness is proverbial.

Mrs Driver (Housemistress)

* * *

Boarding school wasn’t a bit like Enid Blyton had
described it, but I still quite enjoyed it. We didn’t have many
midnight feasts as the threat, if caught, of sleeping in the
isolation room with Emily the scullery maid, was not
attractive.

There was also another strange tradition that was
never mentioned in Enid Blyton’s books: namely, GOs. The
abbreviation GO stood for Gone On, and each new junior was supposed
to choose a senior girl to be ‘gone on’. That meant you had a crush
on her and you were supposed to write her little notes and swoon
every time you saw her.

I chose Shirley, a friend of my sister’s. I don’t
remember who Snort chose, but you were only allowed to choose
somebody that nobody else had already chosen. It was a strange,
rather pointless tradition, perhaps a little akin to ‘fagging’
without the harshness. Fagging, in many boarding schools, meant
younger pupils were required to act as personal servants to senior
pupils and were often disciplined severely. Thankfully, as far as I
knew, nothing like that happened at TH.

Some girls in my dorm suffered terribly from
homesickness, but I wasn’t one of those. Of course, I couldn’t have
Prince Snowy Twinkletoes with me, which was sad. I wished our
school was like some others that allowed pets. But I did have Snort
as a friend, and my older sister, should I ever need her.

We looked forward to exeats, when we could go home
for the day, but these were over so fast there was barely time to
do anything. During these visits, I remember how small my house and
bedroom seemed as I’d grown accustomed to the long corridors of St
Mary’s and our large dorm. I was so used to sharing a dorm that, in
the holidays, it felt strange to be the only person sleeping in a
room.

But Enid Blyton described the camaraderie well. We
girls grew very close and Snort and I were inseparable. Our days
were crammed full and we were never bored. Almost every minute was
accounted for in some way, right down to Thursday evenings when we
were allowed to watch part of Top of the Pops in the portacabin,
the only room with a TV, apart from Matron’s and Mrs Driver’s
rooms. We could only watch part of the show as it coincided with
bedtime, which was set in stone.

I’ve always been a good sleeper and in those days, I
was usually asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. The ghost of
Emily the scullery maid could have danced a highland fling on the
end of my bed and I probably wouldn’t have woken up. One time,
Snort had a bad cold and began to snore, but I wasn’t the one who
threw slippers at her because I slept right through it.

One week, Matron rather pointedly pinned up a plan
on the door of the dorm. It was a map of St Mary’s showing the
nearest fire exits.

“Well, that’s easy,” said Snort. “If there’s a fire,
we just dash down the stairs, through the locker room and out of
the back door.”

“Correct,” said Matron, then added darkly, “but what
if that route was blocked?”

We had a think about that.

“And mind you gels read the rules at the bottom of
the sheet.”

Matron left, and Snort read the rules aloud. We
listened carefully.

Do not take any possessions with you, even items of
value or teddies.

Put on slippers or shoes and a pair of linings.

Vacate the dorm in a single orderly line.

The Dorm Captain should be the last to leave, having
made sure everyone is out.

Unsurprisingly, that very night, a fire drill took
place.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrinnnngggg…

“Dusty! Wake up! It’s a fire drill!”

“Wh…”

Snort had been voted Dorm Captain, probably much to
Matron and Mrs Driver’s dismay, as she was the most unruly girl in
the dorm.

“Quick,” shouted Snort. “Put your knickers on! And
your slippers! Hurry up! Everybody out!”

I was heading the line, but to my surprise, the
flight of stairs leading down to our nearest exit was blocked.
Shirley, my GO, was standing there holding up a large piece of
paper saying FLAMES.

“Oh, Shirley!” I said, pretending to swoon, the
behaviour expected when one met one’s GO.

“Not now!” she hissed. “Quick, you’ll have to go up
the next flight of stairs, along the corridor past Mrs Driver’s
room and down the stairs on the far side.”

I turned and led the line up the stairs. However,
outside Mrs Driver’s room was another prefect holding up a sign
saying FLAMES. I had no choice but to turn right and led the line
into the back corridor that housed the isolation room and was
haunted by Emily the scullery maid. Our slippers clumped along the
bare floorboards until we reached the big window that opened onto
the fire escape. Out we climbed, one by one, and clattered down the
very fire escape where Emily was said to have met her tragic
death.